Governments, industries and individuals want to quantify and compare the emissions that result from human activity due to the increasing concern of their negative impact on our environment. Emissions may be defined in terms of green house gases such as water (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N20) and ozone (O3). However, emissions may include any substance emitted as a product of human activity including volatile organic compounds, fluorinated gases, chlorinated gases or virtually any chemical element or compound.
In order to quantify emissions, protocols that outline specific methods of measuring emissions have been developed, such as: the Green House Gas (GHG), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Carbon Disclosure Project, and Bilan Carbone protocols, for example. Within a given protocol the emission intensity for a given source can vary depending on factors such as time, location, altitude, and temperature. As science and technology evolve more effective and accurate methods for measuring emissions are identified, more data is collected, and new protocols are developed. In addition, governments, industries and individuals may implement their own emission calculations specific to their needs.
Quantifying and comparing emissions is also becoming part of national and international governmental mandates. In response to the Kyoto Protocol, and other environmental and trade agreements, governments are implementing programs to track emissions and establish markets for the trading and commodification of emissions. In order to implement such programs it is becoming increasingly necessary for governments, industry and individuals to calculate and report their emission contributions.
Given the wide variety of emission protocols, emission intensities, and human activities that produce emissions, the data gathering, calculation, reporting and management of emissions can be an arduous task. Emission computation is susceptible to significant error if the protocols, intensities and information regarding human activities are not detailed, accurate and up to date.
Accordingly, there exists a need to accurately calculate emission values for an activity in view of the dynamic and potentially complex relationships that exist between science, emission types, emission protocols, emission intensities, activity information and factors such as time and location.